by Misty Evans
He stopped in a dark section of the surgical floor and banged his forehead against the concrete wall. Emma wasn’t out of the woods yet and if she did die…
Well then, he was going back to the cemetery, laying down next to Mac’s grave with his gun in hand, and ending it all. He was done. Done with loving people. Done with living. Because there was no way he could survive the pain of losing her. Emma—the only woman who’d ever looked inside his screwed up brain and not judged him. Not felt sorry for him.
The one woman who hadn’t tried to fix him.
Maybe she should have.
But no, there was no fixing him and the good doctor was smart enough to know it.
Mitch spun around and sagged against the wall, his chin falling to his chest. He was too tired, too burned out. His hands had Emma’s dried blood on them. Emma’s blood covered his shirt too.
Not mine. Dupé’s.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cooper Harris growled from the end of the hallway.
The big guy stood with his feet planted and his face screwed up. He looked ready to knock Mitch’s head into the wall.
Too late. Already done that. “I’m brooding. Leave me the fuck alone.”
“God, you’re an idiot.” Cooper strode forward and joined Mitch on the wall. “Crime scene’s been processed, the proper authorities notified. Goodsman’s death will hit the media shortly. Dupé has suppressed the details about Collins in order to keep her from being a target of the actor’s fans, but there’s no guarantee it won’t leak. High-profile case like this? Celebrity involvement? People are going to demand to know what happened and who was involved.”
And I can’t keep her safe. “She won’t leave the ranch.”
“You should talk to her about upping her security measures.”
“Already did. She thinks her dogs and her shotgun are all she needs.”
“Maybe she’ll be more inclined to listen after this.”
His gut churned. If she lives. “I’m sure Dupé can change her mind.”
“Yeah, about that. The director wants to speak to you. He’s downstairs.”
His career was over. Should have been over the day Mac died. “I’m not leaving the surgical floor until Emma does. If Dupé wants to talk to me, he’ll have to come up here.”
“I thought you’d say that, Agent Holden.”
Mitch and Cooper both looked left. The director stood in almost the same spot Coop had, his hands on his waist. His dark hair was combed back, his suit freshly pressed, his cheeks shiny from a recent shave.
Mitch pushed off the wall, a sudden hot rebellion propelling its way up from his gut into his chest. He faced the director. “I put her here and I’m staying until I know she’s okay.”
“She’s a unique woman, isn’t she?”
The words bloomed in his mouth. “I think I’m in love with her.”
If Dupé was surprised, he hid it well. “She sent me an email earlier. I didn’t get it until a minute ago. Apparently, she seems to think highly of you as well.”
A thick lump formed in his throat. “I never wanted this to happen. I thought Goodsman and Brown were long gone. Will and I took out the other two and I was set to get her to the safe house, and then…”
Dupé came forward, closing the distance. Mitch saw the condemnation in the man’s eyes. “I hear you saved her horses.”
Really? That was what he was going to pick a bone about? “Yeah, I saved the goddamn horses because Emma was going to risk her own life if I didn’t.”
Cooper left off the wall and came to stand beside Mitch. “Holden never signed on to play bodyguard, sir, and I take responsibility for not backing him up sooner. Regardless, I’m keeping him on my team.”
Regardless. The word seemed to hang in the air. Regardless of what Dupé wanted? The taskforce was the director’s puppy. His pride and joy. He only wanted the best of the best on it.
Mitch was definitely not that.
Mitch turned to glare at Cooper. “You’re not to blame, and you shouldn’t want me on your team after this fuck-up. I’m a screwed up SOB and I’m no good to anyone.”
Cooper started to respond and Dupé interrupted. “Neither of you are to blame.” He rubbed his forehead and looked exasperated. “And if you’d shut up and stop throwing yourselves on your swords, I might be able to get a word in edgewise.”
Mitch and Cooper exchanged a look, both of them zipping it.
“Good,” Dupé said. “Even though I’m keeping her name out of the media, it won’t be hard for some of Goodsman’s fans to figure it out. The doctor is going to need extra protection for a while.”
Silence hung. Mitch looked at Cooper again, but the man shrugged. He had no idea what Dupé was suggesting either.
The director put an arm around Mitch’s shoulders. “Let’s take a walk, Agent Holden. I have a proposition for you.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Click, click, click…
Emma woke with the taste of blood in her mouth. Metallic, bitter. Her jaw tightened. She wanted to spit.
But her head felt too heavy to turn, her lips too dry to purse. Her brain floated inside her skull, unfocused, fuzzy—an abnormal feeling that scared her on some primitive level. She wasn’t the floaty, unfocused type.
Click, click, click…the sound reverberated inside her skull, adrenaline firing somewhere in her solar plexus. But the rest of her weighed 200 pounds. Her chest didn’t want to inflate, and when she forced it to, pain radiated from her ribcage, pulsing with every beat of her heart. Her ribs seemed to have a band around them. When she tried to open her eyes, her eyelids felt leaden and unresponsive.
The clicking gave way to a distant beeping sound. The sound triggered a memory of white sheets, nurses.
Sedatives sending her into a free-float.
A hollow ache in her lower abdomen.
Agony clawing at her heart.
The baby.
Her chest hiccupped, hands digging into the bed. The action sent a spike of adrenaline through her system and another memory clicked into place.
She was in the hospital again, but her heart didn’t feel like it had been ripped to shreds. She didn’t feel empty inside…if anything, she felt…satisfied.
That couldn’t be right.
Something had ended, but not the life of an innocent, unborn child. Whatever that something was, it gave her peace.
For a moment, she gave herself over to the floaty feeling. Letting go felt good. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to be stuck in the past, remembering Skye’s death.
The darkness tugged at her, promising peaceful sleep. Her body longed for it, reminding her of her post Mitch-induced orgasms—a buoyant sensation as if she were defying gravity.
Mitch.
Her chest hitched again, and it took three tries, but she managed to pry her eyelids open. Everything was blurry and she shut her eyes against the light coming through the window, the monitor beeping along with her pulse rate as anxiety tripped under her skin.
“Hey, beautiful.”
The voice sounded far away, but happiness filled her. The owner of that reassuring voice took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Biting her lip, she forced her eyes open. Forced them to stay that way as Mitch’s face swam into view, hovering above her. “MMM—Mitch?”
Her voice cracked, his name only a whisper.
He brought her hand up to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “Boy, am I glad to see those crazy eyes of yours.”
“Crazy…”—she had to swallow—“eyes?”
He chuckled. “The first time I saw you, I couldn’t decide if your eyes were green or brown. You were standing in the light of your porch light and those eyes totally mesmerized me, Emma. I fell for them first, then the rest of you in quick succession.”
Her brain tried to follow his words, but the connections were a mess of gossamer threads that stretched, tangled, and broke apart the more she forced her brain to function. The only thing that po
pped into her mind was a fact. “They’re hazel.”
Her voice was scratchy, like she hadn’t used it in eons. He released his grip on her and disappeared from view for a moment, then came back with a paper cup filled with water.
He maneuvered the straw to her lips. “Have a drink, but go easy. You’ve been heavily sedated and your stomach’s empty.”
Even the slight movement of lifting her head made her flinch, but the water tasted so much better than the metallic tang in her mouth. She sipped greedily.
“Not too much, Doc.”
Mitch pulled back and got rid of the cup, coming back to sit on the edge of her hospital bed. Her hand instinctively found his again, some of the heaviness leaving her as she tried on a smile.
He smiled back and they stayed that way for a few moments. Behind his smile, she sensed sadness, regret. There were dark circles under his eyes. His jawline was covered with several days’ worth of beard.
How long had she been out? Why did Mitch look so sad?
“What happened?” she finally asked, dread threading its way around her heart.
His thumb rubbed the sensitive flesh of her palm. “You tell me. You were upstairs getting ready to go to the safe house. Next thing I know, I heard a gunshot. I found you sitting on your bed, Chris Goodsman at your feet with a bullet in his forehead.”
A sinking feeling filled her stomach. “I killed him?”
“You don’t remember?”
Closing her eyes, she willed her brain to work. Click, click, click…the sound echoed in her ears. In flashes, the scene came back to her. “I was in the bathroom. I came out and Chris was sitting on my bed. Linda took the bullets out of my gun.”
Her breath hitched, sending fresh pain through her system.
Mitch touched her arm. “Hey, it’s okay. We can talk about it later. You need to rest.”
“No.” Her voice came out firmer. She opened her eyes. “I need to remember.”
He nodded and waited patiently, letting her think it through. In her mind’s eye, she let the scene play out. “The bullets fell all over the floor. The gun was worthless.”
“How did you manage to shoot him, then?” Mitch asked softly.
“I jumped him. We wrestled. I ended up on the floor and I crawled under the bed and found a bullet. That’s where…” She swallowed hard. “That’s where I saw the army men. The Tom Monahan fighters. Like he’d been under there playing with them.”
Tears flooded her eyes. She felt violated all over again.
The same disgust she felt rolled through Mitch’s eyes. “Are you sure it was him? Might have been Brown.”
“I managed to get the bullet in the gun. Chris bent down and grabbed me by the foot and pulled me out, so I…”
She couldn’t finish the statement.
“You did what you had to do, Emma.” He squeezed her hand, letting her process her conflicted feelings, a sentiment he knew all too well, and continued. “Will found Goodsman’s hideout. He and Brown were camped in that abandoned ranger site. Coop said that must have been where Sean Gordon squatted as well. As we suspected, Gordon and Brown probably set the fire—there were dozens of files there, meteorology reports, past forest fire analyses, and detailed park security measures so they could figure out how and where to get in and out without getting spotted, and the best place to start the fires in order to send them in the direction of the public. Our guess is, that if your ranch got caught in the crossfire—no pun intended—Brown would have been quite happy about it.”
Her head hurt remembering. “Are the horses okay? Did Will get them rounded up?”
“The horses and the dogs are fine. Doc Jane is helping Will at the ranch. At least she’s trying to help him. They seemed to rub each other the wrong way a lot.”
“They’re perfect for each other.” The thought made Emma smile. “They just haven’t figured it out yet. I’m working on it—or at least I will be once I’m up and out of here.”
“Let’s not rush anything. Brown nearly killed you, Emma.”
The knife. Another flood of memories wiped the smile from her face. “How bad is it?” she asked, placing a hand on her ribcage.
“She sliced through your inferior vena cava. You were in surgery for fourteen hours.”
No wonder he looked tired and she felt like road kill. “You stayed here the whole time, didn’t you?”
His face was all hard lines. “It’s my fault Brown and Goodsman got to you.”
It wasn’t just sadness behind his eyes. Guilt lingered there as well. “Don’t do that to yourself. This is no more your fault than it is Will’s or mine or the man on the moon’s.”
He looked down, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “The other man has been identified as Roger Colfax. He’s the one who killed Carla and injured Danika. You might know him as—”
“Punisher.” The instant Mitch had said Roger’s name, Emma stiffened. The Punisher, a Marvel comic moniker that the Mary Monahan Chronicles had borrowed. A character whom thousands of fans had embraced because of his vigilante tendencies. “I’m quite familiar with him.”
Her tone made Mitch give her a questioning look. “Did you analyze Colfax somewhere along the line?”
Ice encased her heart. Her teeth chattered and she ground them together for a moment before she could speak. “I had a very personal run-in with him once.”
Understanding creased Mitch’s features. “Ah, jeez, Emma. Colfax is the guy who broke into your house two years ago, isn’t he? The guy you shot?”
She nodded, her head cold now too. Every part of her was covered in ice. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
“Hey.” Mitch rubbed her arm, touched her cheek. “He’s in jail for a good long time. He can’t hurt you.”
Except in her dreams. The Punisher would keep returning in those. Skye would keep dying.
Fiddling with the sheet, she blinked back the deluge of tears threatening to fall. “This isn’t your fault, Mitch. None of it. I brought all this on. Me and my crusade to prove Chris Goodsman was a sociopath. Skye should be alive. Danika shouldn’t be fighting for her life.”
“Danika’s fine.” Mitch shifted his hand over to the opposite railing. He hovered over her again, a frown deepening the crease in his forehead. “I saw her not two hours ago and she was eating ice cream and pretending she had a concussion so she didn’t have to go back to juvie. She asked about you and Twinkie. Wanted to know when she could come out to the ranch for her next session.”
It was Emma’s turn to frown. “She still wants to come for therapy?”
Mitch nodded. “She loves you, Doc, in case you didn’t realize it. You and Will and the horses.”
“Did you tell her about the barn?”
“Nah. By the time you get home and she’s allowed to come back, you’ll have a new one, anyway.”
“What?”
“Cooper and the gang are hanging out for a week. Because of the holidays, our caseload is light and Director Dupé gave his okay to help you out. They’ve already cleared the site and the supplies for a new barn are being delivered today. I don’t guarantee the quality of workmanship—we’re talking about a bunch of federal agents, here, not carpenters, but Will says he’s got it under control. Apparently, his father was in construction, so he knows a thing or two about buildings.”
Emma’s heart felt light. “A new barn. What do you know? The horses are going to love that.”
“Doc Jane says she has a lead on another horse for you, too. A rescue a few miles north. She’s not that old, but she has special needs because of neglect.”
Emma scooted herself up a bit in the bed, ignoring the pain cutting through her chest. “How soon is the doctor going to release me?”
“Hold on there, tiger.” Mitch put his hands on her arms, forcing her back down. “You’re not going anywhere for a while.”
“But I need to get that horse.”
“I figured you’d say that. Victor and I’ve already taken care of it.”
“Yeah, we’re on first name basis now, thanks to you. I gave him back his shirt by the way.”
“Oh. He told you?”
Mitch smirked and something sparked low in Emma’s belly. “He told me. Like you said, he’s a friend. Someone who cares a lot about you. I get that, believe me. I care about you, too.”
“You do?”
He leaned over and kissed her softly. “Of course, I do. You know that.”
She touched the side of his face. The sadness in his eyes was back and she suddenly understood why. “You’re going back to work for him, aren’t you?”
“He and I are picking up the horse tonight. Dr. Jane made the arrangements. Will’s already got a spot for her fenced off in the pasture.”
Her heart loved him so much. “You answered my question by omission. How very Mitch of you.”
He grinned and sat back. “Yes, Emma, I’m going to continue working for the taskforce. At least for now.”
“So you’ll be going to San Diego or wherever your next undercover operation takes you.” She swallowed hard, forcing nonchalance into her voice. “That’s great. Victor needs agents like you.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I failed big time at protecting you.”
“You tried repeatedly to get me off the ranch, and I refused almost as many. The fires shut down the roads, but I suppose in your warped way of thinking, you should have forced me to leave and somehow magically transported me to that safe house. Is that correct, Agent Holden?”
“Are we back to last names?”
A protection mechanism. “You saved me and my horses and Danika. I’ll never forget that.”
His grin faded. “You may not like my new assignment.”
She was sure she wouldn’t. “You’ll handle it with flying colors, but honestly, Mitch, I think you should get counseling to deal with your PTSD surrounding your brother’s death before you take on undercover work.”
“Victor agrees.”
Her brows went up. “You told him about the flashbacks?”
“Yeah, after he offered me to stay on as your bodyguard. He thought we might both benefit from a few sessions.”